CITY ROOM; Two Charged In Plot to Help Driver Cheat On an Exam

By COLIN MOYNIHAN

Published: March 2, 2012

He said he knew little to no English. Not a problem, he was told. But the driving test was in English, he said in his native Mandarin, so how could he possibly pass?

''You don't have to worry about it,'' said Pui Kuen Ng, whose husband, Ying Wai Phillip Ng, owned a commercial driving school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. ''He will teach you what to do.''

The man did, in fact, pass the test for a commercial license, answering 86 of the 95 questions correctly. But his success had nothing to do with tutoring sessions; instead, federal prosecutors charged on Thursday, he was the beneficiary of a hidden-camera trick.

The Ngs had outfitted the man, who was an undercover agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations unit, with a varsity-style jacket equipped with a small camera hidden in the snap button on the right cuff, according to a criminal complaint filed on Thursday.

Mr. Ng instructed the man to position the sleeve a certain way, so that it could capture an image of each question. The image would then be transmitted to a monitor built into the ceiling of a minivan parked outside, where Mr. Ng would determine the correct answer, then activate a pager that the man had been given.

The code was simple: two vibrating pulses for an ''A,'' four pulses for a ''B,'' and six pulses for a ''C.''

Mr. Ng assured the agent that he had ''helped people with the written test for more than 10 years'' at his school, N&Y Professional Service Line. He added, though, that his system did fail to work on Sept. 11, 2001, because of widespread cellular service failures that day, court papers stated.

Everything went according to plan. On Feb. 1, Mr. Ng drove the undercover agent to the Department of Motor Vehicles office on Staten Island, and parked the van outside. Images were transmitted, pulses were sent, and the test was passed. The agent paid the Ngs $1,800 and obtained a Class B permit, allowing him to take a road test.

Prosecutors said it was unclear how many times the Ngs had executed their hidden-camera cheating ploy, but they noted that more than 700 people associated with N&Y had taken the commercial license test since the beginning of 2010. One of those customers was a driver who was behind the wheel of a bus that crashed in Virginia last year, killing four people and injuring dozens.

The Ngs, both 47, were arrested Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit mail fraud. They face up to 20 years in prison if convicted.

In a letter to Magistrate Judge Roanne L. Mann of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, prosecutors asked her to issue permanent detention orders for both defendants, saying they presented ''a serious risk of flight.'' They pointed to the fact that the Ngs, both naturalized American citizens, had immigrated from Hong Kong and still have strong ties there.

The prosecutors cited the bus accident in Virginia, where the driver, who is now facing involuntary manslaughter charges, had passed a road test with a vehicle registered to N&Y.

On Thursday, a lawyer for Mr. Ng, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, said: ''I'm not aware of any evidence that the driver involved in the Virginia accident cheated'' on a license exam.

A few minutes later, Mr. and Ms. Ng stood in front of Judge Mann. Mr. Ng, speaking English, told the judge that he understood the charges against him. Ms. Ng said the same, communicating with the help of a court translator.

A prosecutor, Paul Tuchman, told the judge that the government's case had grown stronger since the Ngs were arrested. Judge Mann ordered that Mr. Ng be held, but she allowed Ms. Ng to be released on a $500,000 personal recognizance bond secured by a house that is owned by her husband.

This is a more complete version of the story than the one that appeared in print.

PHOTO: Pui Kuen Ng, center, leaves federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday. She and her husband, Ying Wai Phillip Ng, are accused of helping a driving student cheat on the commercial license exam. (PHOTOGRAPH BY KIRSTEN LUCE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)